How to Encourage Your Blog Readers to Share Articles?

When we talk about SEO in 2014, one of the biggest factor for high-ranking is Social media signal. It’s certainly clear, that Google+ have the highest impact in search engine ranking and it’s a part of Google analytics and Google Webmaster tool. Though, this article is not just targeted for Google+ but to all the social bookmarking and networking site. Idea here is to encourage & motivate readers to share articles. It’s not a rocket science to understand what kind of article readers like and what are the factors that influence them to share articles.

Social Networking forms a huge part of any successful Blog or website. The scale of Social Networking, sharing, re-tweeting, +1, stumbling etc can determine the size and popularity of a blog and the quality of its content. So what makes people send out recommendations towards your blog by doing the above said actions? Why would people want to share your content with their friends and family? What do they gain by publicizing what you have to say? By learning the answer to these questions, you can understand how to motivate your readers to Share your articles.

What Makes Your readers share an article on Social Media?

I will take an example to answer this question, Imagine that your new pet dog was not adjusting well to your home and he was feeling very unhappy and you could just tell that the dog felt helpless. Then you went on Google and searched for, lets say “How to make my new little puppy happy?”, and you get an Article, following the instructions of which helps you get to know your puppy better and he finally starts feeling at home .Now you go to Twitter or Facebook and say “This article really helped me out with some issues with my new puppy” and Share the article.Why did you do this? You were Grateful for the insight provided by the article, it helped you out. You want others who are facing the same problems or are in need of that information to be able to reach that article. This is why people share an article, they are either –

Looking for the information that the article provided.

Entertained by the Article (may be Video, Image or a good story) and want others to see it too.

They feel that the article may help someone else, like one of their friends or family, who had been looking for such info.

They feel that the article talks about an issue which others should be aware of.

Remember that when people share your articles with their friends and family, they trust you and your information, make sure you do not let them down.

What do your readers gain by sharing?

A Person decides to Share an article only when they have finished reading it and feel that they need to share it due to one of the reasons mentioned above. So they share it only if they think it is going to add value to others, they share it only when the article has already added some value to them(the reader). Once a person is thankful for the value you have added, sharing comes naturally.You have already provided them with an incentive to Share, you have provided them with quality content.Your readers have already gained what they wanted before even sharing.

Do Blog readers Like to Share?

Definitely.People love to share what helps them, what entertains them.In social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, what kind of news and articles you share can determine who you are. Some people pride themselves on being a social media maven by sharing great social media news and articles every day. Some people show how much they love a sport by sharing news and posts about a sport Etc. Sharing can help create an identity for a person online, so people love to share what they like.

One factor which you should learn is: Find your blog audience and demographics. See, what social media they like to use more with your blog. For example, an article on Facebook is most likely to get more Fb share and like. An article on Twitter marketing, will get more Tweets and so on. Depending upon your niche, find what works best for you. Here are some which, I suggest and pick one which work for you: Google+, Pinterest, Facebook, Stumble Upon, Delicious, LinedIn, Share this, Email, Print.

From what we just read, we can learn to motivate our readers in the following ways –

Give people what they want. This is where Niche sites come in, people visit ShoutMeLoud when they want some Blogging help, or social media news. May be people visit your blog to learn about Furniture, in that case, give them in-depth information about Furniture.

Ask people what they want to know about, you can do this by making a simple Poll or by asking them to take a survey. Write about their popular queries, make your article the one stop shop for all the info they need.

Encourage them.It does not hurt Ask them to share by adding a by-line in the end with the easy sharing tools such as Floating Share Buttons.

Create Content that is not only great in Quality, but is also spell-binding. Your article must grab the attention of your readers.

Other, more Trivial ways of Motivating your Readers to Share –

One of the most important factor of encouraging readers to share is giving social bookmarking buttons a prominent place. Now, think from your sharing habits. People, like to share articles once they are finished reading. Social bookmarking buttons below blog posts or floating buttons gets more CTR, as readers might like to share or bookmark your article after reading.

Include some related Images and Videos that complement your written content.

Try to increase your Social Network Size, that is getting more followers and Subscribers. These people are more likely to Share your Content as they have already approved of the quality of your site.

Post your new content on all your Social Spaces, such as on your Facebook Page, Twitter Page, Google Plus Etc.Give the option of sharing the content directly from there.

One of the thing which people often miss is, placing bookmarking buttons in Feeds. If you are using Feedburner, it offers an option to add difference buttons like Digg, delicious, SU after the article in feeds. This is certainly useful if you have good amount of feed subscribers.

Remember Great Content is in itself a big Motivation factor to Share, build on it. That should be the foundation where you start from. One thing, which you should focus along with getting share is get more followers. Social media sharing is one time thing, but if you convert your one time readers into your subscribers, you have done it right. If, reader is sharing article but not subscribing to your fan pages or Email newsletter, it’s time to look into the factor which is stopping them from subscribing to your Email or Fan pages.

Blogging can never be 100% documented and different tricks work for different blog. You have to understand your audience and give them the best of what you got and see number of social engagement encouraging for you every day. Last but not the least, if you find this article informative enough, I would love to see you sharing it and join our Email newsletter for more updates. Also, let us know which trick worked best for you to motivate readers to share articles?

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An 18 year old Football crazy Tech Blogger, who runs the Geeks & Nerds Tech Blog.A TrueBlue Chelsea Fan and has been Blogging for a while and started his new Tech Blog Geeks & Nerds on December 27 2011.Gautham On Google+

This is one of the better post on how to motivate readers to share articles. I guess the key points that I would summarize is that there is no typical shortcut to creating a viral article for sharing, its all about quality content. No matter how one look at it, content is still king regardless it is a video, audio or plain text information. It’s amazing how some localize news easily travel far and wide with the help of social media network. I guess with the advancement and ever changing Internet technology and social media landscape, connectivity is no longer an issue but rather how one leverage on it to establish credibility and authority in respective areas of domain.

this was an incredibly well-written post. It was informative and written in a style that made me read it to the end. You told us what you were going to write about and covered all of your points in a concise but informative manner. now, could you please help a tech-challenged blogger by telling me how i add all the buttons to my blog posts. is there a widgit for my wordpress page or something i need to search for. keep the great posts coming, max

Yeah, I’ve found that articles that answer a specific question that really hasn’t been asked before will get attention. Staying fresh and adding your personal view points also gets reader’s interest as they like the human element of how someone else coped, survived, or experienced something. Great points on social networking – its going to be huge this year.

Some readers are addicted to Liking while others want to be the first one to share something useful and/or awesome. So the basic psychology of someone who shares articles is definitely one of association to the content present in it. Which is why you are right, we must not let them down when they are due to share.

with the help of someone from geeks and nerds online i now have sharing buttons on my site. I’m told they show up properly. With sharing don’t forget to share yourself. Starting with my most recent post I now hit all the share buttons. I eespecially love being able to just click share and have the link posted on my new twitter account. good luck, max

To motivate readers is a tough task if you do not work or write in a smart way. You have explaines all those points how to motivate them. thanks for this article bro it will help me a lot as i am planning to start a viral niche blog.